Moby Dick's Tales: Introduceing ASL
by Freefan1412
Summary: Slight AU. Every story has a beginning. This is one.


Ace woke up, his entire body hurting and aching and he was groggy, his head felt sluggish, unable to warp around the fact that….

He moved the covers back (damn, that _hurt_!) and got up, absently identifying his surroundings as some kind of storage. (He didn't think moving had ever been this difficult.)

The sky was (sinfully, cruelly) beautifully clear and the kind of deep blue that always drew attention to the just-a-shade-deeper oceans. As a child, stuck on a mountain, that had been what had motivated him to treck down, to find the sea and was what made Ace meet Sabo.

A seagull chirped and Ace wondered (desperately, despairingly) if they were fine. Or at least still alive.

If they were they'd come searching for him and Ace knew Sabo, but Luffy especially (because the boy had _no_ sense of self-preservation and coming from Ace that said something) would die trying to get him back. Sabo had brains and knew when to back off, if only to protect Luffy. Luffy had nothing like that. Luffy had almost died trying to be Ace's friend. Almost ten years ago.

He slid down the railing, head buried in his arms. The log-pose used to be comforting weight on his wrist. Now it was only mocking.

"Hey." Ace was in _no_ mood to talk. "I'm the fourth division commander. The name is Thatch." Ace glared up. A red-head with a cheeky confident smile looked back at him. Ace glared harder. "Since we are going to be nakama, let's get along well."

"Shut it!" Becoming nakama with anyone here was just above drowning on his priority list. He had lots of better things to do. Damn it!

"Oh, well," the man shrugged, "you sure woke up in a bad mood." Sitting on the railing the Fourth Commander folded his legs, amused. "Wanna hear about what happened after you blacked out? Your nakama came back. Very quickly. We beat them, of course and …well… they're on board, too."

Ace felt like the world had left his shoulders. They were alive. They were alive. _Alive_.

"Are you sure you should let me –"

"GIVE ACE BACK, YOU BASTARDS!"

Ace's jaw dropped.

Thatch scratched his cheek.

Jumping up, Ace raced down the ship, following the voice shouting and yelling insults and (probably) ignoring his situation.

He came to a stop on the main deck.

His eyes fell on Luffy, naturally. Who was tied to the main mast with… were those steal ropes? And he was currently stretching his neck at some bizarre angle for some unknown reason.

"Luffy!"

Luffy's head snapped back into position so fast that were he not of rubber he'd have gotten whiplash at least. "Ace!" The previous cloudy and dark and not-Luffy-like expression lit up like the sun and Ace felt himself smile in response (the very same smile with the very same effect; not that Ace knew). "They didn't eat you!"

...

Okay. Wait wha….?

The pirates all burst out laughing.

Yeah, that's what Ace thought. Let's have a little fun at the innocent boy's expenses. Ace glared, promise of violence.

"I told ya, Luffy they were making fun of ya."

"Sabo!"

"Thanks for noticing me already, Ace!" Sabo yelled, sounding just a bit miffed and lots of irritated. Though, in Ace's defense he was tied to the other side of the mast, completely removed from his sight. Unless one had hawk eyes and noticed the tip of a blue hat poking out.

Still, somehow, tied up and facing the completely wrong direction Sabo managed to hit Ace with his goggles. "Wall of fire, Ace! A goddamn wall of fire! Couldn't ya think of anything better, ya idiot? What were ya thinking?"

A good question, in hindsight. Not that Ace was gonna admit that. "Yeah, well it wasn't like I had many options at the time!"

The three of them were quickly becoming the center of attention; not that any of them noticed.

"Freakin'. Wall. Of. Fire. _Ace!_ We were _this_ close t_a_ getting roasted!"

"You were supposed to get away!

"Well, what did ya expect? Luffy was _this_ close getting h.u.r.t, trying to rocket right through your freaking _wall of fire_!"

"What did _you_ expect?" Ace threw right back, trying and failing to suppress a slip of his eyes in Luffy's direction at the big-brother-guilt-tip-card. From Luffy there wasn't much else to be expected than that. In hindsight.

"I agree with Sabo! Ace is an idiot!" Luffy added and Ace found this was quickly dropping to their usual level of ridiculous, what with Luffy and Sabo tied back to back to a thick mast and Ace trying to argue with them both and not losing sight of either. Stupid.

"I don't want to hear that from you of all people, rubber-I-got-eaten-by-the-crocodile-that-was-my-di nner-brain!"

"That was your fault!"

"My fault! Very funny-"

...

...

What exactly was so funny again? Ace suddenly found it hard to think. And was it only him or did the sky become comfortably dark… and the swaying… of…

* * *

Gone he was. Before the astounded eyes of the Whitebeard Pirates the Spade Pirates Captain nodded of in mid-sentence, still standing. And remaining standing. Swaying but standing.

Not a second later the two prisoners, who needed to be kept an eye on on deck (because they had either _chewed_ through their previous hold or _somehow_ got rid of them and they needed to be tied down, because the Whitebeards liked the Moby Dick, thank you very much), did the same. At exactly the same time. Slacking in their bindings like they were the most comfortable thing in the world.

The pirates stared.

Haruta poked the _standing_ Captain.

He fell hard but continued sleeping.

Some laughed. Some shook their heads in exasperation. Some did the same in amusement. Some just shrugged. It seemed like these three Spade Pirates were perfectly insane already even without any of their influence.

Thatch, watching until now, took out a marker. (The standard version he always had on his person. For situations just like this.)

They'd fit in well.

* * *

This is another part of my Moby Dick's Tales series and I have to admit that, chronologically speaking, I hadn't planned on writing anything earlier than First Meeting. But well... Who cares? :)

Please leave me comment.


End file.
